I was thinking about the legacy of ghosts in fiction, and specifically the moral power of those Dickensian ghosts. Because a ghost can be a very powerful but also manipulative element.

Every writer knows that when you're imitating somebody - you know, you're sounding like Faulkner - you're doing pretty good, but your life in Hoboken isn't Faulkneresque. So you get that kind of shortfall between the actual experience of the writer and the things he's hungry to express and the voice itself.

The demographics are changing - and so what? Citizenship is a question of certain agreed-upon values and that is that. Do we believe that? I think at heart we do.

Realism is to fiction what gravity is to walking: a confinement that allows dancing under the right circumstances.

That underscored this idea that when we're reading a book or writing a book, you're in an act of co-creation. The reader and the writer are both trying to dress up and present their best selves and then there's that moment, when suddenly, as a reader, you're not exactly you anymore, and likewise, as a writer, you're not really you.

Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible.

In Catholicism, we would say you're going to be judged, so therefore you should do better now. For me, Buddhism is somewhat more workable because instead of saying I have to do good, it says I have to notice what I'm actually doing.